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IKEA Group, the world’s largest furniture retailer, will triple the pace of store openings in China to capture faster growth in the second-largest economy, chief executive Mikael Ohlsson said.

“The demand is there," said the Swedish executive. Customers in the world’s most populous nation have “the dream, the wish, the need to furnish and the fit with IKEA is very good". Sales in China were growing faster than for the company as a whole, Mr Ohlsson said.

The expansion in China will allow the company to reduce its reliance on Europe, where it gets about 80 per cent of sales and which is suffering from a slump in consumer confidence. IKEA would cut prices by 1.5 per cent this year as its increased scale allowed it to produce items at less cost, the chief executive said.

“We will have a higher expansion pace going forward than what we have had in the last couple of years," he said. The company will continue to accelerate hiring after adding about 4000 jobs last year.

IKEA will open about three stores a year in China, building on the nine it has there. Opening an outlet costs €60 million ($80 million) to €100 million on average, he added.

The maker of Poang chairs and Billy bookshelves increased sales at its shops about 6.9 per cent in the year ended August 31, bringing the total to about €25 billion as it slashed prices, added stores and new services, Mr Ohlsson said, divulging the figures for the first time.

“The competitiveness of IKEA should improve every year and this year, the gap is even bigger between inflation and IKEA’s price picture," he said. “What we have decided is to continue to become more affordable and to be also more accessible."Bloomberg

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have stolen dozens of sophisticated Russian-made surface-to-air missiles from Libya and smuggled them across the border to neighbouring Sudan, according to Western intelligence reports.

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Units attached to the elite Quds Force, which travelled to Libya from their base in southern Sudan, seized the weapons.

Acting on orders from Revolutionary Guards commanders in Iran, they took advantage of the chaos that engulfed Libya following the collapse of the regime of former dictator Colonel
Muammar Gaddafi
to seize “significant quantities" of advanced weaponry, according to military intelligence officers in Libya. They said the weapons stolen by Iran included sophisticated Russian-made SA-24 missiles that were sold to Libya in 2004.

The missile can shoot down aircraft flying at 11,000 feet, and is regarded as the Russian equivalent of the American Stinger missiles that were used by the US-backed mujahideen to defeat Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. It is similar to the weapon used by al-Qaeda in the failed attempt to shoot down an Israeli passenger jet taking off from Kenya’s Mombasa airport in 2002.

Intelligence officials believe the missiles and other weapons seized from Gaddafi’s abandoned arsenals were smuggled across the Libyan border to southern Sudan earlier this month, where they are now believed to be at a secret facility run by the Revolutionary Guards at al-Fashir, the capital of North Darfur. Some of the missiles are also reported to have been smuggled into Egypt.

The Telegraph

South Korean President Lee Myung Bak said plans to build a natural-gas pipeline across the divided peninsula were realistic, less than a year after a deadly North Korean artillery attack on a disputed island.

“I do not consider this as a far-fetched dream," Mr Lee said in an interview in New York. He called the project “a win-win for everyone involved".

OAO Gazprom, Russia’s gas-export monopoly, this month signed preliminary agreements with South Korea’s Korea Gas and the North Korean government to build a pipeline that would carry as much as 10 billion cubic metres of gas a year across its eastern border to the peninsula.

Mr Lee’s support for the project may signal an easing of tensions between the two nations, which haven’t signed a peace treaty following their 1950-1953 civil war.

“I’m aware that the Russians and the North Koreans have been discussing this issue and that some progress, good progress, is being made," Mr Lee said. “We can buy gas at reasonable prices; and for the North Koreans, they can also get some benefit by collecting the transaction fee."

Mr Lee rolled back his predecessor’s Sunshine Policy of engaging with North Korea when he came to office in 2008, arguing that the policy rewarded Kim Jong Il’s regime for provocative behaviour – a view echoed by the United States.

Relations with North Korea reached their worst level in decades last year, when North Korea shelled Yeonpyeong island, killing four people, and was blamed for a torpedo attack on a South Korea warship that claimed 46 lives.

The pipeline project may prove a turning point for inter- Korean relations, Hong Joon Pyo, chairman of Lee’s ruling Grand National Party, told lawmakers Sept. 7. He estimated North Korea could earn about $100 million a year to rebuild its economy, while South Korea might reduce its natural-gas prices by about 30 percent.

Increasing demand from South Korean industry for natural gas underpinned the economic rationale for the project, said Charles Kim of Mirae Asset Securities in New York.Bloomberg